Ford Car & Truck Reviews: F-150, Mustang, Focus, Expedition, Ranger & Mondeo Ghia

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO

By Jack Baruth
June 30, 2009

Not everything needs to come with a warning label. A bag of peanuts shouldn’t have “Warning: contains nuts” on it. You know what I’m talking about here. But when I shyly asked the infamous “Agent 001” of Autospies to be my co-driver for the next day’s 2010 Taurus SHO twisty-road press preview, perhaps I should have had excerpts from my “Maximum Street Speed” editorials stapled to the functional sleeves of my Gulf-blue Kiton linen jacket. Kind of a warning label, you see. It would have saved him more than a little worry the next day . . . To say nothing of the dry heaves. But don’t worry: Ford’s latest SHOmobile isn’t nausea-inducing. Unless, that is, you are sensitive to the odor of disc brakes when their pads catch on fire.

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 56 comments

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus

By Jack Baruth
June 24, 2009

Don’t believe the hype. The 1986 Taurus was not “the car that saved Ford.” Trucks saved Ford in the late Eighties and early Nineties, as consumer tastes moved away from the one-sedan-fits-nearly-all market in favor of the newly popular SUV. Nor can the 2010 Taurus save a Ford beset by problems on all sides. There are no longer enough potential mid-sized car buyers to make a huge impact on the company’s bottom line, and most of those buyers are really better candidates for the smaller, more affordable Fusion.

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Taurus

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 102 comments

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang GT, Take Two

By Robert Farago
May 27, 2009

TTAC writer Samir Syed was on the lamb last night, cooked by yours truly. To honor the dead sheep's spirit, Sam brought by a rented Ford Mustang GT. For some reason, I never got ’round to driving Ford's latest Pony Car, what with the world's largest bankruptcy looming on the editorial horizon and my step-daughter's after-school activities ending for the term. Anyway, the car in which I was about to go roaming in the gloaming embodied its designers' desire to re-infuse the ’Stang with some understated classicism---while attempting to add a bit of visual drama (swage much?). Other than a hideously overwrought rear, there's nothing particularly wrong with the result. Not to put fine a point on it (so to speak), the new Mustang doesn't give me wood. Still, personal fertility and automotive blue pill issues aside, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang GT, Take Two continued »

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 58 comments

Review: 2009 Ford Escape

By John Holt
May 14, 2009

Conceived in a desperate search of EPA credits, the Ford Escape has walked in the shadows of its bigger brothers, Explorer and Expedition. Despite the Escape’s loveless upbringing, it prevailed, providing easy cream on Ford’s SUV gravy [train]. In the last fuel surge, the Escape found favor: a future president escaped his Chrysler 300C for a gas/electric version of the venerable Fordette. In the ongoing clamor for right-sized, fuel efficient vehicles, one would think the Escape’s inner virtue would shine through. Instead, Ford stifled its middle child by birthing a clusterf*ck of overweight CUVs (Edge and Flex). For 2009, the Escape, again, eats from the scraps.

Review: 2009 Ford Escape continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2009 Ford Escape

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 64 comments

Review: 2009 F-250 Powerstroke FX4 Crew Cab Cabela’s Edition

By Jack Baruth
May 6, 2009

Many years ago, in the pages of CAR, the inimitable LJK Setright considered this question: Presented with the last gallon of fossil fuel on earth, how would you burn it? The elaborately justified answer: he would spend it flying a “motor glider,” flying from thermal to thermal across the majestic open sky until the last drop was spent. Setright, regrettably, was not an American. Had he been, he would have understood that the proper way to burn the last gallon of fossil fuel would be to dump it into a Ford Super Duty.

Review: 2009 F-250 Powerstroke FX4 Crew Cab Cabela’s Edition continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2009 F-250 Powerstroke FX4 Crew Cab Cabela’s Edition

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 41 comments

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

By Jack Baruth
April 24, 2009

In my recent review of the 2010 Mustang GT, I suggested that only a slight lack of power vis-à-vis the competition kept the revised pony from five-star status. The new “Shelby”--- air-quoted because the car is really a product of the dedicated men and women of Ford’s unsung SVT division--- GT500 is a sharp riposte to that concern. At approximately forty-eight thousand dollars, it’s the only 540-horsepower car available under fifty grand. Or sixty. Or seventy. Or eighty. Or ninety. In fact, if the embattled Viper doesn’t show up in showrooms for 2010, it will be the only car for sale in the country with this kind of power under… the Corvette ZR-1, which costs nearly three times as much. Ah, but is the uber-Stang really worth the premium over the the GT?

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 34 comments

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang

By Jack Baruth
April 1, 2009

Many years ago, it became quite fashionable to refer to The Clash as "the only band that ever really mattered." Chevrolet borrowed this evocative line for the introduction of the soft-top C5 Corvette, calling it "the only convertible that ever really mattered" in a two-page color-rag spread. Truth be told, though, those are both pretty tough cases to make. And you don't have to be a Beatles-obsessed Boxster owner (as I am) to argue the contrary. It's far easier to apply the phrase to the Mustang: the only ponycar that ever mattered. Consider the competition. Camaro, Challenger, Javelin... hell, Celica and 200SX. Some shone, some sucked, none have gone the forty-five-year distance. The Mustang was the first ponycar on the scene, the best ponycar available for much of its history, and the only one to not disappoint its fans with periodic disappearances. And now we have a new "new Mustang," arriving just in time to spoil the Camaro's tardy coming-out party.

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Mustang

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 85 comments

Review: 2010 Ford Fusion Sport

By Jack Baruth
March 27, 2009

More than three hours and two hundred miles after leaving home, a call came through on our Fusion’s SYNC system: the testing session we’d scheduled at Virginia International Raceway was canceled due to several inches of unexpected snowfall. With ambient temperatures hovering in the fifteen-degree range, and without any available track time to put Ford’s facelifted mid-sizer through its paces, how could we determine if the Fusion “Sport” lived up to the promise of it’s fashionable chrome badging?

Review: 2010 Ford Fusion Sport continued »

rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Fusion Sport

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 70 comments

Used Review: Ford Econoline Conversion

By Sajeev Mehta
March 10, 2009

Here are some comments you don’t normally associate with the Ford Econoline: lack of manufacturer support and repair facilities, high repair cost and crippling loss of revenue during downtime. That’s what I gleaned from a Dodge Sprinter fansite and those comments came from one of the forum’s more even-handed members. Which explains the sea of Econolines (white paint, out of state plates) on the Bayou City’s expressways after the devastation of Hurricane Ike and not a single Sprinter. So let’s check out a Regency conversion van to find the Econoline’s inherent goodness, hmm-kay?

Used Review: Ford Econoline Conversion continued »

Used rating summary and performance review: Ford Econoline Conversion

Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 42 comments

Yankee Econo-Car Comparo: 2nd Place: Ford Fusion S

By William C Montgomery
March 5, 2009

I believe that the 2009 Ford Fusion S is the most unremarkable car I have driven. Ever. When I sat down to record notes immediately after concluding my test of this blessed blandmobile, I had a hard time recalling anything about it. I got in. Transportation happened. I got out. That's it. This car's striking anonymity served both to prevent it from winning this comparison - not even close to defeating the Chevrolet Malibu LS. At the same time, I suppose flying under the radar preserved it from a potential loss. Actually, the Chrysler Sebring LX is so dreadful that defeating it isn't much of a victory. So the Fusion S ingloriously falls into second place. Read on as I attempt to fill 800 words... about nothing.